


Synesthesia

by Tui_and_La



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tui_and_La/pseuds/Tui_and_La
Summary: "I'm only honest when it rainsAn open book with a torn out pageAnd my ink's run outI wanna love you but I don't know how" (Neptune - Sleeping at Last)





	Synesthesia

First, Riza warned him. Then, she put as much distance between the two of them as she could. Then, her shirt fell in cascade down her shoulders revealing the inked patterns on her back. He didn’t have time to process the idea, or to protest, or to ask for further explanation. In a minute, they’d jumped from the strangeness of formalities to an intimacy that he never saw coming. He’d asked for a secret, but she was sharing her body.

“You can come closer, you know, to read the details”. 

Those were her timid words of trust, her signal to advance.

Her curves tasted like deadly poison, he told himself to focus away from them. He’d treat her like a book, following only the lines traced in ink, taking in the old paper scent so characteristic of all other materials his Master had given him in the past.

Wrong.

She was flesh and bone, so she felt cold, hot, tired and bored. Was she used to being treated as an object of study, was that how she saw herself now? No, he refused to. Instead, he’d share with her every discovery, their talks would smell like coffee and feel like blankets, and her arms would be able to unfold from the cross over her chest. 

Above all, he would remind her that she was no longer the container, but the _owner_. 

“I won’t scream.”

Was she lying to give him confidence or was she just that innocent? 

His right hand - which hadn’t met a glove ever since the end of the war - adjusted reluctantly inside it’s case, envying the left one which remained free. The fresh perfume of her skin filled his nostrils once again, as Roy reminded himself that this wasn’t _his_ ordeal, but hers. His fingers exhaled.

 _Snap_.

A cry battled clenched teeth and escaped from betrayed lips, cutting deep into terrified ears. The red in her scream mixed with the red smeared in the white sands of Ishval, echoing in a whirlwind of despair. His mind was now unable to distinguish the sounds of her emancipating pain from the doomed pleads of dark skin.

“I’m sorry.”

A cowardly whisper.

“Finish it.” 

A sip of her bravery.

 _One more time_. 

It wasn’t over yet, blood still flowing from the wound on his back, hands shaking for courage, body giving up. The first whoosh of fire had been a sweet lullaby, easing the mind and the muscles after a nightmare, inviting to a long needed rest. But the danger was still looming at a distance, every moment closer to her. 

He concentrated in pushing out of his mind the expected agony glowing in alert. If just for one second. . . 

_Snap_. 

And he screamed, too, hungry for the cloth of his sleeve, jaw set firmly even after his own music stopped playing, trying to mute the weakening lullaby travelling his body and to stand up for the mission ahead.

Finally, silence.

The awaited response wouldn’t come, Roy could see it now. Suddenly, all he wanted was to hear "daughter stories", to take a bite of the colorful life repeatedly painted in an attempt to flourish his days, but the other side of the line left him unattended.

Roy closed his eyes to keep the vulnerability inside from leaking through the soldier shell. The loss poured anyway, soft and warm and ironic, daring to caress his cheeks as if it hadn’t slapped that same face over and over again for the past hours, masked as a cold confirmation, a guilty insomnia, and the pink figure of innocence trembling at every gunshot. 

Roy had closed his eyes to run from the truth, however, the Truth reached him a few steps away and ripped him away from the blessing of sight. 

When it’s pitch-black, all other senses fight each other for a chance to take the lead. Roy didn’t know he feared the dark, but he could smell his own horror as his throbbing hand insisted that the hard ground was the only certainty he had left.

Then, he was taken in a tender embrace, and an unknown voice colored in hope promised kindly to watch out for him. But the following chaos said otherwise, and the confusing noises punched him in the guts with a reminder that he was a now deadweight. Yet the motherly voice found a way to travel back to him and reassure that, yes, he was still relevant.

He’d been right all along, that tiny humans don’t give up on one another, that they could be stronger if they built a net. He would be whole again, even if just for that battle, as soon as he returned to his Eyes, and they’d fight as one.

Eyes open, just so the brightness of her golden hair blinded him a second time. Every blink followed his own heartbeat, each louder and thirstier for the world, for her. With one more attempt to turn a glimpse into a gaze, Roy met the rarest of her smiles, and there he nested himself.

“It’s good to see you again, Lieutenant.”

Her smile turned into a giggle, and the giggle poured into rain, and that rain wasn’t unwelcome this time, because her eyes reflected their dreams, no longer naïve, grandiose, heroic. This time, they were grounded, possible and they were, in fact, already coming true.


End file.
